REFUGEES OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

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Kirsty Carpenter

Émigrés in London, 1789–1802

Refugees of theFrench Revolution

First published in Great Britain 1999 byMACMILLAN PRESS LTDHoundmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire RG21 6XS and LondonCompanies and representatives throughout the world

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

First published in the United States of America 1999 byST. MARTIN’S PRESS, INC.,Scholarly and Reference Division,175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010

ISBN 978-0-312-22170-6

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataCarpenter, Kirsty, 1962–Refugees of the French Revolution : émigrés in London, 1789–1802 /Kirsty Carpenter.p. cm.Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index.ISBN 978-0-312-22170-61. French—England—London—History—18th century. 2. France––History—Revolution, 1789–1799—Refugees. 3. French—England––London—History—19th century. 4. Political refugees—England––London—History. I. Title.DA676.9.F74C37 1999942'.00441—dc21 99–13682

CIP

© Kirsty Carpenter 1999

All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be madewithout written permission.

No paragraph of this publication may be reproduced, copied or transmitted save withwritten permission or in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright, Designs andPatents Act 1988, or under the terms of any licence permitting limited copying issued bythe Copyright Licensing Agency, 90 Tottenham Court Road, London W1P 0LP.

Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable tocriminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordancewith the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed andsustained forest sources.

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 108 07 06 05 04 03 02 01 00 99

Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1999 978-0-333-71833-9

ISBN 978-1-349-40391-2 ISBN 978-0-230-50164-5 (eBook)DOI 10.1057/9780230501645

à mon mari

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Contents

Lists of Figures and Tables viii

List of Illustrations ix

Acknowledgements xiii

Introduction xiv

1 First Impressions 1

2 1789–92: a Prolonged Vacation 17

3 1792: the Influx 29

4 Soho 49

5 Marylebone, Richmond, Hampstead – the High Life 62

6 St Pancras, Somerstown, Saint George’s Fields – the Low Life 87

7 Educational Pursuits 100

8 Politics: Their Own Worst Enemies? 116

9 Émigré Writers and Writing about Émigrés 133

10 Franco-British Culture and Society 155

Conclusion 175

Appendix 1: Chronology 185

Appendix 2: Figures and Tables 189

Notes 206

Bibliography 243

Index 256

vii

Lists of Figures and Tables

Figures in Appendix 2

1. Towns listed as lay émigré centres in the British Relief Lists 191

2. Lay émigrés receiving relief from the British government, 1794–97 192

3. Place of origin given by the refugees in London 1934. Money-flow into the voluntary relief fund in its first year 1945. Date of emigration from France 1956. Émigrés in and outside London in 1797 1967. Refugee addresses in London 1978. British subscribers to the voluntary relief fund 1989. Servants receiving relief, 1794–97 199

10. Gender analysis of servants receiving relief after 1796 20011. Lay émigrés receiving relief in 1797 20112. Lay émigrés receiving relief in 1799 20213. All émigrés receiving relief in October 1801 20314. All émigrés receiving relief in March 1802 204

Tables

4.1 Illnesses among émigrés, 1796 59A.1 Statistical analysis of lay émigrés receiving relief, 1794–97 205

viii

List of Illustrations

1. A French Family by Thomas Rowlandson, 1792 (British Library, Prints and Drawings No. 9686, published by Fores,Piccadilly in 1792) © British Museum xxvi

2. Salus in fuga: La France se purge petit à petit by George Cruickshank (BL Prints and Drawings No. 7663, 29 July 1790) © British Museum xxvii

3. Map of London and Westminster, John Fairburn, 1796 © British Library (Maps C 27. b. 73) xxviii

ix

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L’exil est quelquefois, pour les caractères vifs et sensibles, unsupplice beaucoup plus cruel que la mort.

Mme de Staël, Corinne

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AcknowledgementsThere have been many people whose help, patience and wise counselhave contributed to this book. It is based on a thesis directed byMichel Vovelle (Paris I, 1993) and, for me like many, his greatexample as a researcher has been an inspiration. I have many Frenchfriends whose enthusiasm, support for my work and generous hospi-tality have made the experience of writing a thesis then a book so veryenjoyable. I would particularly like to mention the Rolland family inAngers who were wonderfully supportive in the first year of my time inFrance and the Domenech family who are very dear to me, especiallyClaire and Didier Marillet. The tolerant scrutineers who gave invalu-able comments on the manuscript include Maurice Hutt, PhilipMansel, and Dominic Bellenger. I would also particularly like to thankPamela Pilbeam and the members of the Modern French HistoryResearch Seminar at the Institute of Historical Research and theInstitut Français for their support and constructive criticism.

I have had help and support from the staff of many institutions: theBritish Library, the Public Records Office, the Bibliothèque Nationale,the Archives Nationales, the Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, andfrom my university colleagues in France, the UK and now NewZealand where I have taught since 1994. Special thanks must go to adear friend and mentor, Robert Neale, who edited the manuscriptwith meticulous care.

To all these people I am extremely indebted and profoundly grate-ful but none more so than to Andrew who has lived with the FrenchRevolution and émigrés for many years now and shared the happytimes and the heartaches with tolerance and love.

xiii

IntroductionSince the time of the Revolution the Emigration has received a verybad press. The émigrés have been accused of many crimes in the inter-vening years, against humanity (which the Revolution claimed todefend), against the French people and against the French state. Yetwhat was their crime? We find the most comprehensive reply in themouth of one of Balzac’s characters:

Quitter la France est, pour un Français, une situation funèbre.

For a Frenchman, leaving France is a sorry business.1

The fact that they left the country, isolated themselves from politicaldevelopments and alienated themselves from individuals with similarpolitical sympathies inside France, was an important factor. Whencommunications broke down and emigration was made punishable bydeath, this indeed became a ‘situation funèbre’.

The émigrés have been refused a place in the history of the FrenchRevolution and refused a voice in the crowd because they desertedtheir country and some took arms against it. By revolutionary legisla-tion they were stripped of their rights as French citizens and con-demned to death if caught on French soil. These laws left littlepossibility for them to make their case before their fellow-citizens.

Popular images of emigration, like Salus in fuga, portray theémigrés as deluded aristocrats who left France in dribs and drabshastening to the frontier to join the forces being raised by the princesnear Coblenz or slipping across the British channel under the cover ofdarkness in stormy seas. They took the only option left to them, theirpolitical views surpassed and defeated by the euphoria of the NationalAssembly in its glory days.

These are myths, powerful myths it is true, which, throughout thenineteenth century, Republican tradition has had no interest in top-pling. Many Frenchmen thought that the émigrés received their com-pensation in the Indemnity Bill of 1825 – much too much, in the eyesof many nineteenth-century liberals.

In French political tradition the émigrés have become inextricablylinked with a movement of staunch inflexibility which characterisedthe ultra-royalist or ‘ultra’ faction at the time of the Revolution.

xiv

Ex-émigrés who dominated politics during the Restoration saw to itthat the emigration was entirely associated with support for theBourbon cause. Constitutionnels or those who supported a compro-mise between absolute monarchy and republic were objects of ridiculefrom both sides for reasons treated fully in Chapter 8.

In Britain, the destination of many émigrés, the scene was set forthe ideas of Revolution to come into conflict with reason and the goodsense of the Glorious Revolution, particularly in regard to issues oftaxation and equity before the law. Moreover, the British responsewas important. Britain did not join the war against France untilFebruary 1793 and it did not want to be involved in a European warwith the economic wounds of the recent colonial conflict still painful.The British reception of the refugees was therefore somewhat invol-untary but prompted by a sense of duty, honour and obligation tosupport those whose position was in sympathy with their own.

The diplomatic history of the eighteenth century had been a seriesof defeats for France inflicted primarily by Britain.2 In 1789 Francewas still smarting from the humiliation of the Seven Years War but, atgreat expense, it had won the latest round when the Americancolonies gained their independence from the British throne and a par-liament in which they had never been represented.

For the British it was national pastime to to dislike the French.They were a shady lot who lived on onions and could not be trusted.

‘Ah,’ says one man to his companion, ‘one had need to go to Franceto know how to like old England when one gets back again.’ ‘For mypart,’ rejoined another, ‘I’ve never been able to get drunk once thewhole time I was in France – not a drop of porter to be had – and asfor their victuals, they call a bit of meat of a pound and a half, a finepiece of roast beef.’3

Politically, relations between the two states were tense and suspicious.Culturally, they were as cordial as ever with the British consuming justas much French wine, coveting the latest French fashions and readingas much French literature.

My liking for Mme de Sévigné is, I suppose, owing to my veryignoble love of gossip, which, if it be but honest and natural, Ialways like, whether on paper or de vive voix. And French, beingthe very language of chit-chat and prittle-prattle, is one reason whyI like so much the mémoires and letters of that gossiping nation.4

Introduction xv

By the end of the eighteenth century, French was the time-honouredlanguage of chit-chat and prittle-prattle on the social and politicalscene. Prominent members of both communities engaged in lengthydiscourse par écrit; Horace Walpole and Madame du Deffand are anextreme case but many others were in regular contact like Jules dePolignac and the Duke of Devonshire.5 It was in the best of taste tocultivate things French not only in London but also in the provinces.6

Ah! les Anglais, les Anglais ont bien des singularités!7

Ah! The English, the English have many peculiarities!

Yet by 1793 attitudes towards the British inside revolutionaryFrance were far from neutral. The British, and the émigrés with them,were held responsible by the revolutionaries for all the problemswhich France was facing. In Paris Barère and other prominentJacobins were advocating national hatred for the British as an integralpart of French republicanism.8 Barère was among those who incitedthe French to believe that, without the British, Europe would be freefrom its shackles.

que les esclaves anglais périssent et l’Europe sera libre.9

At a time when political propaganda was discovering its potentialamong a rapidly expanding readership, information, or lack of it, wascentral: central to the effectiveness of revolutionary propaganda andcentral to the case made against the Revolution by the émigrés. Byportraying them as one group, united by the political aim of destroyingthe Revolution and restoring the absolute monarchy, the revolutionarygovernment controlled opinion. Censorship legislation saw to it thatthe royalist press had no outlet in the capital and therefore had noaccess to the public. From 10 August 1792 until the death ofRobespierre, the royalist press inside France was silenced. On 29March 1793 the death penalty was voted in for anyone seeking the re-establishment of the monarchy. Many political journalists were victimsof the guillotine, like the two poets Roucher and André Chénier, whodied two days before Robespierre condemned ‘writers hired by thetyrant to mislead and corrupt public opinion’.10 The Law of Suspects(17 September 1793) left writers with royalist sympathies few options:they emigrated, they transferred their talents to the Republic or theydisappeared in the provinces in order to avoid arrest and certain death.

xvi Introduction

Royalist newspapers did re-emerge cautiously during theThermidorean period because the revolutionary laws were not policedwith the same vigour, and this continued during the First Directory.However, the Fructidor coup of September 1797 put an end to anyleniency and during 1798 and 1799 journalists, editors and owners ofnewspapers were deported in significant numbers.11 Effectively by thetime Napoleon came to power in December 1799 the royalist press inFrance had virtually ceased to exist. Then, during the Empire, well-policed censorship completely eradicated the royalist voice insideFrance and left the field clear for the émigré press based in London.12

Therefore, in a revolution where political communication was, morethan ever before, central to the spread of ideas and the popularity ofrevolutionary propaganda, it is very important that punitive laws sup-pressed the voice of those who challenged revolutionary government.Many émigrés were the authors of reasoned polemics like the earlypolitical writings of André Chénier advocating nothing more, initially,than moderate constitutional monarchy. Yet André Chénier, who paidfor his reason with his head, like many émigrés, underwent a politicalevolution from reasoned moderation to fanatical anti-Jacobinism.Chateaubriand is a parallel example who underwent a similar transi-tion from moderate constitutional monarchist to ultra-royalistbetween his two works The Historical Essay on Ancient and ModernRevolutions (1797) and the Genius of Christianity (1802).13

Polarisation in the case of individual opinions was a characteristicof the emigration, just as it was a characteristic of the Revolution. Noindividuals returned from exile unchanged. All émigrés endured longperiods of relative inactivity due to a host of constraints, geographic,financial, political and social, which left them nothing else but theirpolitical positions to re-examine. This alone was a new experience formany used to constant society and a very different lifestyle. Many ofthe émigrés describe the soul-searching which went on day after dayamong both women and men trying to come to terms with theRevolution and the options which remained open to them.

It is imperative to underline the fact that there was no one politicalphilosophy represented in emigration but that there were a number ofpolitical positions which co-habited, sometimes uncomfortably,outside France. A dominant faction has been identified in retrospect,and in the knowledge of the Restoration but, at the time when aRestoration was far from certain, the politics of emigration were asdiverse and unpredictable as the politics of the Constituent Assembly.Studies which have detailed the shifts in voting patterns during the

Introduction xvii

two initial phases of the Revolution, the Constituent Assembly(1789–91) and the Legislative Assembly (1791–92) emphasise the hap-hazard nature of votes and the unpredictability of the outcomes due tothe multitude of political views and the assertion of individuality onthe part of the deputies.14 Many of the émigrés of late 1791 to 1792shared the diverse visions and the social background of the membersof the Constituent Assembly, which make these studies illustrative of abroader phenomenon: that of the diversity of political opinions ingeneral in France before the radical phase of the Revolution whichbegan on 10 August 1792, and the lack of any model for politicalbehaviour. This diversity, or lack of agreement in regard to politicalsolutions, was responsible for many defections into emigration.

There are many correspondences too between émigrés andFrenchmen who did not leave France. The period directly after thefall of Robespierre is particularly illustrative of the similaritiesbetween the moderate elements of both sides. The members of thegovernment which had survived the Terror and shed the radicalJacobin deputies (i.e. Robespierre, Saint Just, etc.) were preoccupiedwith the preservation of the Revolution and the Republic while ensur-ing that the Terror could not legally be reinstated and that the monar-chy could not be restored. Throughout this period, moderateRepublicans and moderate Royalists are almost indistinguishable intheir political desires and objectives except on the question of head ofstate, and even this is ambiguous.

What that illustrates is the lack of any clean-cut divisions between asignificant proportion of émigrés and the vast majority of republicans.By the late 1790s France was manifesting the essential characteristicsof French politics in the nineteenth century. Even in regard to 1830,tales of an old aristocratic monarchist France at war with a new bour-geois country are dismissed as ultra-royalist anachronisms.

While the vast majority preferred to maintain a constitutionalmonarchy because they knew they could not agree amongst them-selves on an alternative and were fearful of popular upheaval, theirmonarchism was entirely pragmatic.15

This is primarily the reason that royalists in France accepted theConstitution of Year III16 because, although a monarchy could notlegally be restored during the life of that Constitution, it provided theeffective basis of a constitutional monarchy with five Directors sharingthe responsibilities of a King. It is significant that this Constitution

xviii Introduction

contained clauses which reaffirmed the position of the French state inregard to émigrés. Under no circumstances were they to be allowed toreturn and the Constitution prohibited the Legislature to make newexceptions to existing émigré legislation. It also reaffirmed that émigréproperty was the property of the Republic and that purchasers of thisproperty, providing that they had acquired it through the legal chan-nels, could not be dispossessed.17 Yet, significantly, nowhere in theYear III Constitution was a definition of the term ‘émigré’ attempted.

Political pragmatism perpetrated by a property-owning liberal elitewas therefore beginning to assert itself as early as 1795 when thestranglehold represented by the Maximum on the economy was lifted(December 1794) and the Constitution of Year III simultaneouslyinstitutionalised the commitment of the government to 1792 and therejection of the Terror.18 The resultant weakness and instability of theDirectory governments were not a product of the Constitution per sebut, rather, a product of the political situation in which it was intro-duced. It was written not for a wartime economy but for a peacetimeenvironment and that quickly became apparent.

The turning-points for departure from France are the Great Fear(July 1789), Varennes (June 1791), from 10 August 1792 to theSeptember Massacres, and the 1793 legislation. This was passed on 28March–5 April and tidied up all the loose ends in relation to émigrésand enemies of the state. The 1793 legislation which made emigrationpunishable by death and decreed all émigrés forfeit of their Frenchcitizenship, is treated more fully in Chapter 3.

The turning-points for returns are less numerous. The first opportu-nity came at the end of 1791 when an amnesty period of two monthswas declared in order to allow émigrés to return or face prosecution forconspiracy.19 This decree of 9 November 1791 was vetoed by the Kingand could not be put into effect yet, in practice, the amnesty applied.On 8 April 1792 another law declared the property of all émigrésabsent since 1 July 1789 forfeit to the state if they had not returnedwithin a month. The King consistently vetoed legislation relating toémigrés and refractory priests until his deposition in August 1792.20

Once the Convention met in September 1792 the position on theémigrés became law. On 23 October they were banished in perpetuityfrom French soil and those caught on French soil were condemned todeath. A short amnesty (of 15 days) was accorded to allow those whowished to re-enter the country to do so. The next opportunity toreturn after the passing of the 1793 legislation did not come until afterthe death of Robespierre and the end of the Terror. The laws against

Introduction xix

émigrés were still in force and émigrés were still inscribed on thepolice lists but there were few deaths during the Thermidor periodand only the most extreme cases were deported. This had more to dowith a revulsion for blood shed in the aftermath of the Terror thanany revision of policy on émigrés.21 Under the First Directory, whichcame into existence in October 1795 with the completion of theConstitution of Year III and subsequent elections, moderate royalistswithin France began to re-establish their influence in the Assembly,which had changed its name from the Convention (too closely associ-ated with the Terror) to the Council of Five Hundred. Fears of elec-tion victories for deputies with either royalist or radical Jacobinsympathies led to the contravention of this Constitution before it waseven implemented. The parting gesture of the old Convention was topass the Decree of Two Thirds on the same day that it accepted theConstitution (22 August 1795) which ruled that two-thirds of the exist-ing deputies had to be re-elected to the new legislature and therebyensured republican dominance.

This provoked the uprising of 13 Vendémiaire which became amilestone in the French Revolution because, for the first time since1792, the Paris mob did not get what they wanted from government bythreatening lack of support and in turn found themselves brutallyrepressed. This revolt was supported by many different strains ofcounter-revolutionaries who did not want to see the former membersof the Convention retain their seats and, in its wake, several deputieswith known royalist sympathies were arrested. The law of 3 Brumairean IV (25 October 1795) was the legal reaction to the Vendémiaireuprising. It prohibited from holding elective public office any memberof the primary or electoral assemblies who had been in any way associ-ated with protest against the Law of Two Thirds and it also excludedfrom public office anyone who had been listed as an émigré withoutobtaining full radiation or any relative of a listed émigré. Womenrelated to émigrés were required by the same law to return to theirdomicile of 1792 and remain under the surveillance of the municipalauthorities and the laws against priests, which had effectively beensuspended, were reimposed with a vengeance.

The passage of the 3 Brumaire law ensured that issues regardingémigrés and their relatives, bien nationaux and refractory priests werehigh on the agenda of the First Directory. There were many inconsis-tencies in the sale of bien nationaux and many sales and potential saleswere being contested. Catholic issues too were of central importancefor a variety of political and private reasons. What this highlights is

xx Introduction

that the political ramifications of any repeal of the émigré laws ren-dered revision impossible. The cost of investigating the issues whichwould have had to be faced were any revision to take place was far toohigh for any fragile Directory Government to give it serious considera-tion. But the issue here was larger and more dangerous than itappears at first reading. It was not the émigrés but the legality of theregime which had condemned them that was in question and there-fore throughout the Directory any suggestion of injustice towardsémigrés directly implicated the foundations of the Republic itself.While the Republic remained at war with Europe, the émigré questioncould not be resolved.

The course of 1796 was crucial for the royalist cause in France. Thestrong anti-Jacobin reaction which produced the White Terror in theprovinces gave the moderate royalists some room to manoeuvre. Thiswas a particularly important year for the destiny of the Revolution anda point at which it threatened to change course. It is also one of thebest illustrations of the lack of coherence and trust between the royal-ists within France and the royalists without. Many royalists insideFrance felt that cooperation with the émigrés undermined theirsupport and their constitutional position. Furthermore, Louis XVIIIin the Declaration of Verona had alluded to a backlash against consti-tutional royalists should an absolute monarchy be re-established. Thisleft a great many people with royalist sympathies stranded. They werebound to monarchy by their tradition and culture but the monarchLouis XVIII refused to consider a constitution, which left themlooking for a monarch who would.22

It was this group of royalists who were in a strong position goinginto the elections of Year V (1797). They drew support from theirmoderation and the fact that their constitutional royalism linked themto the period of the Revolution which had preceded the radical eventsof the Terror. This royalism also appealed to many provincials forwhom the more radical aspects of Revolution, and in particular thedechristianisation, made little sense. This, allied to the re-emergenceof a radical Jacobin political element in French society, all contributedto the disadvantage of the republicans, many of whom were stillformer regicides, and to the favour of the moderate royalists.

Many émigrés returned in the period directly preceding the elec-tions of 1797 in anticipation of a royalist victory and the imminentrelaxation of the émigré laws. Many were waiting, not only for a relax-ation of the laws which put them under threat of death, but also of thelaws which deprived them of their properties and their children of

Introduction xxi

their inheritance. There was even question of letting returned émigrésvote and in fact those who had managed to obtain provisional radi-ation in the provinces were allowed to do so, which showed how much ground had been gained by the royalists. The events surround-ing the Year V elections were complicated by a host of issues relatedto the provincial administration and the waning of popular supportfor the Directory but the outcome was a resounding victory for theroyalists and the prospect of an imminent relaxation of the émigré laws.

Between April and September 1797 (Floréal and Fructidor Year V),some major changes were made to the situation of the émigrés. On 27 April Boissy d’Anglas gave a speech in the Council of FiveHundred where he referred to the ‘barbarous justice’ by which theémigrés could be condemned to death on the strength of a simpleidentification if caught on French soil, and pleaded for trial in theordinary courts. On 4 May the law of 3 Brumaire was amended toallow relatives of émigrés to hold office and on 27 June it was with-drawn altogether. There were other events in this period which indi-cated the strength of the royalist faction such as the election ofPichegru to the office of President of the Council of Five Hundredand the election of Barthélemy as a Director. It was also at this sametime that polemics like Lally Tolendal’s ‘Defence of the Émigrés’appeared in print in exile.

The election result reached through legal channels left the execu-tive of the Republic only one option: an unconstitutional one. InSeptember 1797, therefore, the Fructidor coup purged the Assemblyof the newly elected royalists and appointed candidates of knownrepublican pedigree to the vacant seats or left them unfilled. The factthat a two-week amnesty was again declared before the émigré lawswere reinforced to the letter suggests just how many émigrés hadattempted to return. The government also introduced an oath ofhatred to royalty which all ecclesiastics had to take.

The outcome was known as the Directorial Terror. The revolution-ary regime’s first action was to reinstate the law of 3 Brumaire and itquickly rendered the émigré position that which it had been in1792–93. Unlike the Terror of 1794 the Directorial Terror shed littleblood and used instead the ‘guillotine sèche’ or deportation to Guianaas its method of execution but it did establish the law of 9 Frimaire anVI (29 November 1797) whereby ex-nobles were excluded from publicoffice and regarded as foreigners if they could not prove that they had served the Revolution. This law was the subject of much debate in 1798 because no test for proving service to the Revolution was

xxii Introduction

Introduction xxiii

included in the legislation. In practice it was implemented very spar-ingly because it threatened people in very high places like Barras andBonaparte.

The events of Year VI offered little hope of change to the émigrésituation. The war, the economy and the renaissance of Catholicism inFrance all contributed to keep government policy rigid. Electionswere always contentious: those of Year VI produced the Foréal Coup,which purged the Assembly of legally elected radical Jacobin deputiesin order to prevent a shift to the far left, and those of Year VII, pre-ceding the Brumaire coup by a few months, were characterised by aneven more unsatisfactory result. The government, known as theSecond Directory once it had contravened the Constitution of YearIII, had to go on doing so. The deterioration of the economy and thedesperate need of conscripts for the army resulted in the Law ofHostages (24 Messidor an VII, 12 July 1799) which outlawed anyresistance to new measures. By this law local authorities were empow-ered to arrest relatives of émigrés, imprison them at their ownexpense and impound their property to pay for damages. It was a newLaw of Suspects with wider and more frightening consequences thanthat of 1793 for families of émigrés resident in France.

Effectively after the Fructidor coup the next return opportunity forthe émigrés did not come until the Peace of Amiens was signed on 25March 1802. From the arrival of Bonaparte as First Consul the signsof a pending reconciliation between the royalists and the Jacobinsemerged. In November 1799 the Law of Hostages was repealed andthe government also lifted the legal penalties on the relatives ofémigrés and commuted the oath of hatred to royalty to one of loyaltyto the Constitution. Relatives of émigrés and nobles were restored tofull voting citizenship and the Revolution was declared to be at an end(15 December 1799).

On 3 March 1800 a further decree closed the émigré list and a com-mission was appointed to speed up the radiation process. Althoughémigrés began to return, encouraged by the positive signs, it was stilldangerous. However, after Bonaparte’s dazzling victory at Marengo,Pope Pius VII, despite the views of the émigré bishops in Britain, waspersuaded of the desirability of reconciliation and the Concordat,signed on 15 July 1801, achieved it. Catholicism was named the reli-gion of the majority of Frenchmen.

This was the point at which the vast majority of émigrés, includ-ing the ecclesiastics, returned to France. Those who remained in exile after 1802 were those who refused to give up plotting to

xxiv Introduction

restore the monarchy. It is this ‘noyau dur’ of emigration whosesocial make-up and political actions have been attributed to theentire émigré population.

It is therefore the legislation which provides the clue to the reallevel of émigré commitment to the Bourbon cause. The revolutionarylegislation reveals how few alternatives the émigrés had after 1792 andthat same legislation holds the clue to the multitude of related issueswhich prevented any revision of the émigré laws before 1802.

The fact that the last returns of 1814 represented the smallestnumber of émigrés (with far greater numbers returning in 1802) cer-tainly suggests that the link between the émigrés and the Bourbonmonarchy was more tenuous than it has been portrayed both byRevolutionary and Counter-Revolutionary historians.23 Moreoverthe fact that the Charter, which was the basis of Louis XVIII’srestored government, represented a concession to moderate consti-tutional monarchy illustrates not only the pragmatism of the archi-tects of the Restoration but the minimum requirement of the Frenchnation in the wake of Revolution and Empire in order to avoid civilwar.

In 1814 Europe was exhausted and peace was the overriding objec-tive. For many it would not become clear until after the failure of theSecond Republic and the creation of the Empire in 1851 that theFrench wanted strong government worthy of historical precedents likeFrançois I, Henry IV, Louis XIV and Napoleon but, at the same time,worthy of the collective intellectual tradition of the Enlightenmentand the Revolution. One hundred years after the Revolution theyachieved it in the Third Republic, the longest, most stable and mostinternally contradictory regime France has ever known.

This study of the émigré population in London will I hope bring outsome of the diversity present in the exile community and overturn thenotion that the émigrés represented one united voice. I have particu-larly focused on the social intercourse between the émigrés and theBritish during the 1790s which, while it develops these themes, alsoexplores the antecedents of the complex love–hate relationship whichcharacterises the two nations to this day.

Like Zeldin, I believe that historical study is a personal experi-ence.24 My own fascination for the Revolution years comes from mylove of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century French literature. I have

always found myself especially drawn to literature which does not fitneatly into any established category: the political pamphlets, thememoirs and the poetry which was written not to dazzle the readerwith its literary quality but to contribute to a political debate. It isfrom this literature that many of the quotes in this book are chosen.They are passages which would otherwise be ignored or discardedbut, in their own social and historical context, are often humorousand enlightening.

K. CARPENTER

Introduction xxv

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